Renaissance de Sortilège
by MirrorofDarknessFlame
Summary: Sarah Williams led a life where enchantment was dead and magic didn't exist. But upon her return home, her past returned full force. Would she experience the rebirth of enchantment she's been waiting for? Or would she let the magic die-- Forever? JxS
1. Chapter 1

The greatest influence on a person's life often comes not from within themselves but from those around them

MODF: I've been wanting to do Labyrinth fanfiction for god knows how long, because hey-- I read enough of it. Why not? XD

So here it is!

* * *

Chapter 1

_When she looked into his eyes, she realized there was no hope for a loophole. She would play his game whether she wanted to or not, and it was obvious that he did not intend to lose this time. _

* * *

But the game is not where this story should begin. This story should begin with Sarah William, height 5'6", weight 140 pounds, not that any of that matters. She has long brown hair, thick and shining and falling gently down to her mid back, deep brown eyes, pale skin, and a smile which she wore more often than not. Again, unimportant, but really, rather nice to know. She lived in a small apartment in the city with a view of a small park with a pond and thousands of flowers. She lived alone.

Her small apartment was situated on the second floor of a small building which she herself owned, and the first floor was occupied by her small children's book shop, almost into its second year in business and slowly rising above the red in her finances. This venture leeched most of Sarah's money, which really explained why her apartment was so much smaller than the book store, no small feat considering the size of the store.

Her life was ordinary, but seemingly fulfilling despite the stress she often felt when opening bills, and her utter lack of a social life, but it was well worth it for her to work with all those children. There was something magical, for her, about a child falling into a storybook.

She rarely went out, and a date on a Friday night was pure myth, making unicorns seem like a possibility in comparison. With only two serious relationships under her belt, both ending in distinerest and yearning for something more on her part, she threw herself headlong into the effort to buy the shop. One of said relationships had, in fact, made it to the engagement stage, but that too had ended, and she felt no desire to pursue anyone else at that time.

On her twenty-fifth birthday she slept until noon, got up, fed her cat, ate some toast, drank some tea, took a shower, got dressed, brushed her teeth, and walked out her front door to wait on the street corner for the 2:30 bus that would take her and her overnight bags back to her hometown. It was family tradition that she spend the week of her birthday at her Father and Step-mother's home, and so she closed the shop for the week and hopped the bus.

The bus ride was not particularly eventful, but then again, the morning hadn't been either. Or the week. Or the month. Or the past few years. She shouldn't have been surprised, really. She should have stopped expecting the fantastic ages ago. When the bus slowed to a halt in a familiar sleepy little town Sarah got off, and had little choice but to walk to her house from the bus stop. On the way she chose to detour through a small park. She glanced around nervously when she thought she saw something white swoop by out of the corner to her eye, but she took it for a trick of the eye and continued walking. She payed attention only to her feet tapping along the cracked sidewalk, so as to keep from stumbling on one of the deep rivets in the cement. Passing over a small bridge she stopped a moment to admire the view, and in the back of her head she heard a small echo. _"Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered..." _But of course, she ignored it and kept walking. The park always made her a bit skittish.

The front door to her home was always a place for memories, and as Sarah started up her front steps she had to stop and stare at the polished hardwood door for just a few moments. She remembered the million times she had come home from the park, late, and prepared to face the evil that lay beyond the unfriendly portal. She remembered Karen, her "wicked stepmother", who always awaited to tell her off, and who wouldn't let Merlin inside if he was wet or muddy. She remembered watching Toby while they went out and had fun.

But that was years ago, and Merlin had passed, and Toby was no longer a baby, and Karen seemed much less wicked now that Sarah was all grown up. She sighed and marked that the lacquer that once shone fresh and new had long since faded, and to her the threshold seemed old and tired.

_"You can't stall this forever, you know."_ A little voice in her head remarked snidely. _"You'll have to go in eventually."_

"Oh, shut up!" She mumbled angrily to herself. Sighing again, she muttered a small, "Oh, all right..." and walked slowly up the front steps. For reasons unknown to anyone she hesitated slightly, which was ridiculous as this was still technically her home, but it happened all the same. Then she grasped the cold door handle and entered without knocking.

The foyer was very warm, clean, and filled with the smell of ham and butter and warm cake, which filled her nostrils and warmed the whole of her body. The house seemed very quiet somehow, until--

"SARAH!" Her little brother flew down the stairs and launched himself at her, knocking her bag clean out of her and and pushing her right up against the door. "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, SARAH! Why haven't you been to visit in so long!? I missed you! It's been forever!!"

"Toby, Toby!" She chuckled, wrapping her arms around him, "I just talked to you on the phone yesterday!"

He stepped back and grinned at her, face flushed with excitement. "I know! You always call, but it's not the same!"

"Oh, come on! I'll take this up to my room now. Where's Dad and Karen?"

"Oh!" He gasped a little. "They're in the kitchen! But you can't go in-- Not yet! You have to wait until dinner." He pulled her hand, gently leading her towards the stairs. "C'mon!"

"Haha, alright Toby, I'm coming."

* * *

Sarah found that stepping through the door into her bedroom was like stepping into a memory-- She felt so close to her surroundings, and yet somehow everything was so untouchable and surreal-- as though it weren't hers at all. She felt foreign and out of place... Distant.

Many of her old things had been put away, and those that hadn't were taken with her to decourate either the bookstore or the apartment. The walls seemed barren, dry, and cold to her; white faces gleaming evilly at her, naked and cruel. Her shelves, which once held scores of stuffed animals and books were now empty and covered with dust.

In fact, the only thing that remained to break up the cold monotony of the white walls was a single poster-- Escher's "Relativity". Sarah regarded it with a look of solemn, yet somehow wistful, remembrance, and a sick feeling settled itself in the pit of her stomach. She had left it there for a reason. Sarah dumped her bag on her bed just as Toby ran in.

"Here you go, Sarah! So you won't be lonely!" Toby laughed excitedly, holding Lancelot the teddy bear in his outstretched hands.

"Aw, thanks Toby!" She smiled and place Lancelot carefully on her vanity, sitting comfortably next to the mirror. The mirror... She regarded it strangely as she straightened.

_"You haven't talked to them at all, Sarah. You said you needed them at some point or another. You said you would call on them, but that only lasted a few months, Sarah.. It's been a long time. Six years, Sarah-- is that your idea of friendship?" _The voice prattled on endlessly in her ear, and suddenly the sick feeling emerged as full on illness, to the point that she felt dizzy.

_"I haven't even thought of them," _She thought dully. _"Six years... Has time really passed to quickly? Hoggle, Didymus, Ludo, and..."_ She stopped herself. His name was burned into her skull, and she refused to carry that buried bit of past out into the open where it might be overheard. _"That's quite enough of that!"_

"Sarah, are you okay?" Toby's small voice came from behind her, and when she turned he was looking at her worriedly. She smiled reassuringly.

"I'm fine, Toby. Just remembering something, is all. Come on, let's go downstairs to bug Dad and Karen."

The lovely smells of birthday dinner hit her again when she reached the base of the stairs, and the odd sickness was suddenly replaced by hunger. Toby rushed ahead of her into the kitchen, and before she reached the door her father burst out with a wide smile on his face, arms outstretched, Toby smiling behind him.

"My little girl, home again! How are you, Sarah?" He embraced her warmly, keeping his arms on her shoulders when they pulled apart. She smiled and winked.

"Starving!"

* * *

Dinner was delicious, as she expected. She reminisced with her father and Karen while Toby laughed at Sarah's "antics" in her younger years. A bottle of champagne and entirely too much home cooking and cake made everyone sleepy, and a very tired Sarah bid her family goodnight and carried a comatose Toby off to bed.

Her room looked different when the moonlight reflected off the pale walls. Once upon a time the sheen of multicolored dolls' eyes and glossy posters filled her room, and the moonlight passed over pretty cloths and dresses in her open closet. There was magic in the place when the moon was full and bright in the sugar crystal plate glass of her floor to ceiling windows.

The dresses were gone now. The posters and the dolls were gone too. Now all that was left was Relativity, glaring at her in the light of the toy plastic moon. The plate glass gleamed coldly, all the magic and fantasy gone.

Sarah lay beneath the cool sheets of her soft white bed, staring at the ceiling. Sleep evaded her as soon as she hit the pillow, and it seemed to her like she was there forever waiting to slip away.

_"It's only forever,"_ a voice whispered to her softly in her head. _"Not long at all..."_

"Oh, be quiet." She said aloud. The voice stopped, but the words had banished all thoughts of sleep from her mind. She got up from her bed and sat on the small chair in front of her vanity. Sarah stared wistfully into her mirror, and her eyes began to droop as she stared at her quiet reflection in the looking glass. Sleep weighing down her brain, her heavy head rested on her hands, her mouth moved without warning and without consulting her conscious mind.

"I wish I could bring that magic back in my life..." Sarah yawned quietly and closed her eyes, until her dreamlike state crashed down all around her. Wide awake, she whipped around, wide-eyed and staring in fear at that pane glass. It looked vaguely like sugar crystals in the moonlight. She want to cry.

Without warning the windows blew open, bringing in a cloud of sparkling dust... and the Goblin King, in all or possibly more of his former glory, stood in the effulgence of the high moon.

"Tut, tut, Sarah. I thought you had learned by now not to speak without first considering the consequences of your words. How quickly you've returned to taking things for granted. Did my Labyrinth teach you nothing?" He smirked madly, mismatched eyes gleaming wildly at her.

"What are you doing here, Jareth? I didn't wish Toby away, and I certainly didn't ask for you to come into my house. What do you want?" Her voice was steady, but her knees buckled. She could feel her body shaking uncontrollably.

"Why Sarah, don't you remember? You made a _wish_ Sarah. You may as well have extended a formal invitation." "But--"

"No buts. Now, Sarah, we're going to play a little game. _You_ are going to run my Labyrinth a second time. Thirteen hours, Sarah. You want magic? I will turn the world upside-down for you, _again_. You will have magic, whether you want it or not"

When she looked into his eyes, she realized there was no hope for a loophole. She would play his game whether she wanted to or not, and it was obvious that he did not intend to lose this time.

Sarah could only stand frozen with horror as a hight hot wind overtook her room. The walls disappeared around her and suddenly she was faced with a horrifying view. There was death in that wind. The warm, wet smell of the Labyrinth was gone leaving only the heavy scent of deep decay. The walls, she could see, were crumbling and as black as the clouds blanketing a heavy grey sky above her. The sand beneath her was black and no grass grew. The sparse shrubs that once littered that familiar hill were reduced to sticks in the ground.

"What happened here, Jareth? What's happened to the Labyrinth? It looks--"

"It looks dead," Jareth interrupted sharply. "The Labyrinth is dying. Most of its former spirit is gone now. You want magic, Sarah? Here you are. You will run my Labyrinth a second time. Only now it won't be so easy."

"Easy!?" Sarah shouted angrily. "There was _nothing _easy about running the Labyrinth! This isn't--" She clapped her hand over her mouth and went silent. Jareth raised an eyebrow at her and smirked.

"Isn't _what,_ dear girl?" He said to her. The smirk disappeared, leaving only angry eyes. "Isn't _fair?_ Sometime soon we shall have a long discussion about _fair._" Sarah closed her eyes, sick and dizzy and searching herself for a reply. She said the only thing she could think of.

"You...You have no power over me!_"_ She said defiantly, face twisted into a look of disgust. "_You have no power over me!"_

"Oh, I don't? It seems to me you're still here, Sarah. Your silly trick won't work again, and I have total power over you." Jareth's voice was quiet but full of venomous spite. Sarah was frightened-- And with good reason.

A weather clock appeared beside her, the hands set to 13 o'clock, and when she turned to face her captor she realized he had disappeared. Her voice was hardly a sigh as she spoke aloud to herself.

"C'mon, feet. Let the games begin..."

* * *

MODF: Well? Reviews are lovely, so I know what you think. More to come soon!


	2. Chapter 2

MODF: Wow! That was some response to the first chapter, eh? Although I have individually thanked reviewers, I'd like to thank them again, and anyone else who added the story to their watch list/ are reading this now!

Here's chapter two!

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**Chapter 2**

Sarah walked down the old path with uncertainty wrought deep inside of her stomach. All around her the landscape seemed slightly tilted. Every place where sticks and stones met the earth seemed slightly... Wrong. Even the ground below was unnaturally cold beneath her bare feet, and didn't feel steady under her. Everything just seemed... Wrong.

She reached a familiar clearing at the end of the path. In front of her lay the door to the Labyrinth. It was dark and looming, and the once proud archway that had appeared mysteriously before her years before now lay in crumbled pieces in the dead, black sand.

Sarah stopped briefly to stare amusedly at the old fountain. The racy dwarves were broken and crumbling, with faces laying here and there and hands and body parts laying everywhere else. The water must have stopped working ages ago, judging by the grimy green goo stuck fast to the figures. She slowly crept closer to get a look inside the deep basin, and gasped at what she saw. It was full-- but not with water. What must have been hundreds of minute black bodies lay strewn on top of one another filling up completely the slimy bottom of the fountain.

_'Fairies.'_

Their tiny clothes were ragged, their wings damp, torn, and even missing. Their tiny faces were blank-- Their magic was gone. Sarah choked, and backing away, she put her hand over her mouth in disgust. She looked around, and saw no signs of Hoggle and his fairy-spray. She had half expected to see him shuffling around with the tiny can, killing each and every beautiful, yet ill-tempered, fairy he could get at with a small triumphant yell. There were no fairies flying there, and Hoggle was nowhere to be seen. It was at that moment she came to a horrifying realization.

_'My friends may all be dead and gone. How much time has passed in this world?' _She wanted to cry. She wanted to give up. She wanted to take back her wish. But she also came to another realization-- What's said is said. She had a task at hand, and this time, she had a better idea of what she was doing. She would also have only herself to rely on.

Carefully she overstepped the crumbled rocks of the fallen archway and made her way into the start of the Labyrinth.

The first time Sarah had entered the horrid maze she had found herself in the center-point of two paths, one to the left and the other to the right, which stretched from where she stood off into eternity in one straight line.

It was too much to hope that she could just run to the right, find that little blue worm, and complete the Labyrinth in the same fashion she had the first time. The Labyrinth no longer stretched off into infinity in both directions-- The wall to the left had caved what seemed to be many years ago. Black moss grew on the great stones which blocked her path. She could climb it, but she knew better than anyone that she would go where she would go regardless of what turns she took, and so she opted on the right.

The vines and roots that grew from the walls of the Labyrinth were shriveled and dry. They lay uselessly on the ground, cracking beneath her and scraping her bare feet. The walls, once wet and covered in lively green moss, were bone dry. The moss had died, it seemed, as it was black and shriveled and all the tiny living eyes were closed and lifeless

_"Perhaps it's sleeping," _Sarah thought grimly.

_"Perhaps you killed it like everything else around here when you defeated the Labyrinth and 'vanquished' the Goblin King," _The exasperating imaginary voice whispered slyly to her from somewhere behind her left brain.

"Shut up," Sarah replied feebly aloud. She continued to tread carefully over the ruptured stones, bruising and chilling her bare feet. Wind blew past her in wheezy sighs, as if the Labyrinth were alive and taking its final shallow breaths. The breeze smelled musty, and it was _warm._ She extended her arm and as she walked she felt the bricks for a hidden opening. It wasn't long before her hand groped at the air-- She had found a path.

--

The small corridor-like opening went on for what seemed like forever, getting so thin by the end that Sarah had to turn to her side to get through. In doing so she lost her balance, falling into a wide open space. Brushing herself off she got up and examined her surroundings. She was standing on the edge of what looked to be a deep, dark precipice in the center of a small, covered courtyard. The hole was never ending, and the darkness wasn't darkness at all, but an intense violet shadow, which got darker as the hole got deeper. She couldn't see the bottom.

"What is this place?" She wondered aloud. The stone walls rippled and shuddered as though they were made of water. Even the ground seemed to move in a slight back and forth motion that made Sarah a little sick. She turned hurriedly to return to the way she came, but the opening was gone-- She had lost her chance. Sighing in exasperation, she turned to face the cliff. It too was gone. In it's place was a pedestal in the middle of a violet courtyard. And on the pedestal knelt three beautiful, not to mention identical, women. Their hair was a surreal shade of purple, long and straight spilling from their bowed heads and trailing the floor, their skin pale and glowing and tinged with the violet hues of the frightful courtyard, and their white grecian gowns stained with a dark substance extending gracefully outward to the ground, where they seemed to melt into the floor. They were completely still.

"...Hello?" Sarah whispered uncertainly, her voice hardly more than a whisper. The warm wind didn't reach this courtyard, and it was eerily quiet. An odd groan like the death rattle of an inward dying breath suddenly echoed around her as the middle woman rose jerkily to her feet. She convulsed as her hands raised to frame the sides of her face. The woman froze, and Sarah stood with her back against the wall, eyes glued to the frightening creatures. The second woman shook violently as she too moved in the same jerky fashion, turning to place violet arm on the hip of the standing one's stained gown. The gasping choking breaths grew louder as the third jerkily crawled on the ground like an insect-- Moving straight toward Sarah.

Sarah's hands clawed desperately at the stones behind her as she hoped with all the hope she possessed to find a way out, or for someone to rescue her.

"S-s-stay where you are!" She croaked feebly, as the crouching being slouched towards her. Sarah blinked wildly and shook her head as the death rattle grew louder and louder and her view went black. She screamed and screamed but she could no longer hear herself. She felt cold spindly fingers on both arms and on her face. The blackness in her vision shifted slightly, and she saw the figures were around her, pressing moving dead limbs against her, breathing their dead breath on her trembling flesh. They spoke in unison, three soft child-like voices, hoarse and dark and varying in pitch. Each pause brought that horrifying rattle.

"Come, child, ye who killed the soul of the labyrinth. Come and face what you have done. You have tempted the hands of fate, and now the hands reach out to punish you. You have refused the heart of the king of the Labyrinth, and in return the heart bleeds, as does the life-force of the land. Revive that which you have killed. The day of judgement is at hand. Pass your test, save the creatures of the Labyrinth. Fix that which you have broken. This will bring what you are searching for. _Ton renaissance de sortilège va..._" The creatures gasped and trembled and Sarah blacked out, losing consciousness in a whirl of deadly violet.

--

The Goblin King stared down upon his captive as she lay in the midst of the Violet Courtyard from the top of his crumbled castle. The window side of his tower had broken open, leaving a pile of rubble inside of the room where he did much of his thinking. Behind him was a pile of broken crystalline glass. In his hand was a chipped crystal, which showed him his dreams with blurry realism. The sun was setting. Eleven hours left.

--

When Sarah awoke the world was blurry, tilted, and dark, with outstanding amount of pressure pushing in on her ears. She was vaguely aware of the sobs issuing from her swollen mouth and the scraping noises coming from somewhere to her left, but the pressure on her head was deafening, and noises were muffled to her deafened ears. She opened her eyes to find herself staring at an ornately carved archway opening into a long path. Her vision cleared and her hearing returned full force. She realized immediately that the minimal sunlight that shone through the heavy grey blanket of clouds was gone, leaving the land dark and dismal beneath the . The bricks in the courtyard gave off a strange dark glow, slightly purple, the source of which she couldn't begin to guess. The glowing stones barely illuminated the ground, and further down the pathway the glow grew dimmer and faded. She groaned as she pulled herself weakly to her feet. The scraping continued.

Sarah, frightened for the return of the three demons, whipped around. She saw nothing. The circular courtyard had shrunken to the size of a broom cupboard, the only exit through the archway she had woken up to. But still the scraping continued. Scared, cold, and utterly alone in the horrible silence of the dying Labyrinth, Sarah pushed onward, taking the path that led to inevitable darkness.

The glow dwindled until Sarah found herself fumbling with her fingers trailing slowly and carefully along the high Labyrinth walls. Overhead the warm wind began to blow, sweeping dead leaves and vines along the Labyrinth floors, plaguing the night with the sound of breathing. She extended both of her arms out, one on each side of her, as she felt along for an opening on either side. She found none. She walked for what seemed like an eternity in the blackness until she tripped and fell down-- and down--and down. Head over heels over head over heels, she kept going down the slope until finally landing painfully on her back at the very bottom. With stars in her eyes she tried to refocus, until a voice brought her straight back to reality.

"That was some fall, missy!" A sly accented voice with a slight whistle floated in from somewhere in front of her.

"Next time you should try the stairs!" Another voice, almost identical to the first, interjected. Scrambling Sarah got to her feet, only to find herself standing in front of an odd, seemingly two-headed creature holding a shield. The upper head continued to speak to her, while the bottom one, upside-down, just stared at her. "It's been a long time! We didn't think we'd ever see you again, what with you choosing the oubliette door and all."

"Oh, yes!" The bottom head said, awe in its voice. "No one _ever_ makes it out of the oubliette. You must have more sense than we thought! Either that, or some great help. Isn't that right?" The head inquired of the first, who nodded at him.

"Well really, we knew you made it out AND defeated the Labyrinth, what with everything that's happened."

"Oh yes, we did, didn't we!" Sarah, still recovering from the shock of the fall, finally noticed that the second creature, the liar, was missing, and while the truth-teller's door was only slightly weathered, the liars door had caved in.

"Where's your friend?" She asked the creatures. "What happened to his door?"

"Ooooh," Groaned the bottom head. "Such bad luck, wasn't it?"

"Oh, yes!" Replied the top head. "Smashed by his own door. But he always was an awful liar. Not that he deserved that sort of ending."

"He was nice for company."

"Oh yes, very nice indeed. It gets quite annoying, having only this one for company"

"Who are you calling annoying?"

"Well, do you see anyone else who I've spent the last 500 years with?

"Well, no, I guess I--"

"500 YEARS!? IT'S BEEN 500 YEARS!?" Sarah screamed at the heads in agony.

"Well...Yes?"

She quivered. Rather than dwelling she decided to trudge on. "Alright, I guess I'll go through your door then, since yours is the only one left..."

"Um... Well, alright."

"Yes, I guess we can't really stop you. Go ahead!" They hopped aside, and Sarah pried open the wooden door and continued along the next expanse of stony path. Ten hours remain.

--

MODF: I really wanted to continue, but alas, this seemed like a good place to stop. Reviews are appreciated! 3 If not, thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

MODF: I have come to the conclusion that college is the number one cause of fanfiction's death. Ferserious. Between preparing for it and actually attending, my fanfiction drive pretty much ended. Damn. I bet you thought I was dead, right!? XD

Ah, well, here's the third chapter!

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Chapter 3

Sarah saw nothing ahead of her as she turned a sharp corner on the narrow path. "What is this?" She said aloud. She looked on, exasperated and amazed, at what was quite literally _nothing_. Ahead of her the path, the walls, and the sky simply dissipated into whiteness. The world ahead suddenly stretched out into eternal blanche, like the unpainted edge of a stretched canvas, waiting to be finished. Confused and unsure as to her next move, Sarah glanced over her shoulder and was not at all surprised to find that she now stood on a tiny island of painted scenery. The walls rose up tall beside her. The twisted sky of the fantasy world was far out of reach above her, the floor was hard beneath her feet, but all at once it ended in either direction.

Sarah didn't know how to proceed. Her hands dragged along the wall to her left, from one end of the path to the other, and again on the right, only to find that that was no opening. She extended her hand into the void, a foot to where the ground should have been on either end of the island, only to find no apparent eye tricks. It was really a void, and she was really trapped. Sighing, she sank to the ground, frowning at the white void.

_"Now what, O great conqueror of the labyrinth?" _The voice drawled inside her brain.

"I- I don't know," Sarah sobbed meekly. "Wh-where am I supposed to go from here?"

"Well, there's no use in asking yourself a question you know you don't have the answer to."

Sarah screamed, scrambling gracelessly to her feet at the sound of a disembodied voice from somewhere behind her left ear. Looking around she saw no one—But she recognized that cockney accented voice. Looking down to the wall where she had been sitting, she saw a small skeletal shadow of what she used to know as the blue worm.

"Don't go that way, I told you. Don't go that way. If I had known it was the castle you were trying to get to I never would have said a word. But I guess you got there anyways, miss, I guess you got there… Anyways," the worm sighed. The vivid blue that used to coat the worms tiny body had faded to grey, and bones protruded from it's back. The tiny red scarf had all but disintegrated, clinging, just barely holding on in muddy, faded tatters. It's voice trailed off into nothing and the rest of the thought was lost as it began to mutter to itself.

"Um… Do you…" Sarah hesitated, troubled by the tugging pain at her heart. What had once been a happy, lovely creature had been reduced to this. "Do you know where I should go from here? I—I want to get to he castle…Beyond the goblin city?"

The worm only regarded her with sorrow. "The Labyrinth is dying. The Goblin City is in ruins, and the missus—What would you want to go there for? Never go that way… Never go that way."

"I… I want to fix this," Sarah said. Tears welled in her eyes and she turned away from the frail creature, no longer able to look at it. "I want to make things right. Please! Which way to the Goblin City?"

There came no reply.

Sarah turned. The worm had vanished, leaving only a few stray strands of its tiny red scarf on the labyrinth wall. She picked up the tiny pieces and put them in her pocket. Sighing she sat down once again on the rocky ground, pondering what seemed to be an increasingly more troubling situation.

Sarah slept there on the cold bricks with her face buried in her lap for only a few minutes, but as was not uncommon in the Labyrinth those few minutes were as hours and when she awoke her head throbbed, making her feel worse than before. She fingered the tiny scarf remnants in her pocket and stared ahead of her, trying ot think of a solution to her predicament.

Still, to either side of her, there was nothing.

"_What to do, what to do?"_ the voice inside her head muttered. _"What to do and where to go?"_

"I don't know," she replied aloud. "I don't know where to go and what to do, and for once making it up isn't an option."

"Well of course it's an option."

Sarah hopped to her feet, startled and afraid, as the voice echoed and hissed from an unknown source to her left side. In just those few minutes she slept what was left of the sky just above her had gone dark with sickly dusk, the clouds overtaking the horizon and a dull, dead moon began to show its face. The sky extended still to either side of her her over the walls, the hills daunting her in the distance, but still the murky sky extended into the great nothingness, ahead of her and behind her. She saw no one.

"Sh-Show your self!" She cried, backing up against the wall. "Show yourself right now or I'll—"

"You'll _what_?" The voice hissed. "Shiver at me? You're shaking like a leaf." There was malicious humor in this voice. The sickly sound of flesh grating along the slimy bricks drifted through the stale air, the hissing noises louder than before, and from beneath the platform on which she stood she could see, in the dim light of the moon, the largest snake she had ever seen was coming slowly towards her, rising out of the very air beneath the ground. It's eyes were huge and red and glinted in the sunlight, it's body thick as a tree trunk with the look and smell of hot rotting flesh. Black spikes like fishing hooks protruded from the creatures' spine, prickling as it moved towards her. She gasped and skirted away to the very edge of the opposite side of the platform.

"What… Who are you?"

"I? I am… Disease. I am pain, sorrow, agony, I am rotting flesh and bone and spilled blood. I am a product of your victory over this Labyrinth, one of many products of your victory, I suck the life and soul from everyone and every thing that resides in this realm. And as for 'making it up,' that is always an option. Didn't you ever think to just walk from the platform? The laws of gravity needn't apply in a place like this, after all. You should have just taken the leap…" It smirked somehow; skin pulling back over teeth as long has her fingers.

"You're a… Disease? W-wait. Just.. Walk? That's impossible, I'll fall. How can I trust you? Why are you doing this to the Labyrinth?" She couldn't steady her voice try as she might. The creature struck an ache in her very core, and there was something that told her this was very, very wrong.

"Ohhh," there was a mean chuckle and a pause, the "snake" stopped several feet in front of her, lifting it's body from the ground, rising so its head was at level with hers. "I didn't say anything about trust. I said you _should_ have done that, not that I was going to _let_ you. And any pain I inflict upon this land is on you. You brought me into existence, you are the reason for which I am able to leech and thrive off of this once vibrant land. Now… Now, my dear, I must bid you adieu. I am quite… Famished." It grinned its grin and fast as lightning it struck out at her, aiming to pierce her torso with its giant fangs. She had no time to flinch, no time to anticipate the impact—she only had enough time to shift her weight slightly to the left against the wall. As luck would have it this shift was enough, and as the snake lunged forwards the pressure on the weak point in the ground on which Sarah stood was too great. The snake's head hit the wall as Sarah fell through the crumbled stone, catching herself on the edge as the snake fell unconscious in front of her.

"HELP," she screamed. "HELP ME." She screamed in vain, as the only one who could her or see her plight was a distant onlooker, unwilling to help. Her feet dangled above the nothing, her grip slowly slackened on the bricks. She tried to pull herself up, but to no avail. Suddenly as she swung her knees up to hit the underbelly of the platform something happened. It was as if the whole world had shifted around her, and suddenly she was kneeling, right side up, hands clutching the edge of the platform in a deadly grip. She let go, leaving behind traces of blood from the jagged rocks. Sarah breathed a sigh and turned around. She had found the way.

* * *

MODF: Slightly short, but at least it's an update? = P See you next time!


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